Ahmet Ertegun was that rare music business mogul who achieved legendary status. Like the late Sam Phillips, he was an entrepreneur who helped change the course of popular music, shaping the careers of titans like John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and Neil Young.

A Turkish emigré, he famously started Atlantic Records by borrowing $10,000 from his dentist. His first office was a room in a derelict hotel in Manhattan, from where he recruited his main business partner, Jerry Wexler, who later produced a string of soul classics by Aretha, Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke. 'Over six murderously competitive decades,' Wexler later recalled, 'Ahmet has proven himself the savviest and suavest executive in the history of American music.'

The young Ahmet was a keen jazz fan, whose musical epiphany occurred when he was taken, aged 9, to see Duke Ellington perform at the London Palladium. He adopted a hands-on approach to artist development, often writing and producing hit records, as well as scouring the clubs for new talent. His instinct was unerring. He tracked down and signed the great soul vocalist Clyde McPhatter the week after he'd been sacked by his group, the Dominoes. When a hitless Ray Charles was summoned to his office, Ertegun said simply, 'You are home now.'

With Ertegun, Atlantic embraced the seismic shift in pop culture in the late Sixties, signing heavyweight rock acts such as Cream and Led Zeppelin. The real jewel in their crown was the Rolling Stones, with whom Ertegun often socialised and whose eponymous record label signed a deal with Atlantic in 1970. The dapper businessman was a fixture on the 1973 Stones bacchanalian tour of America, alongside the likes of Truman Capote.

There is some poetic symmetry, then, in Ertegun's death from head injuries sustained when he fell backstage at a Stones show for Bill Clinton at the Beacon Theatre in October. His presence was best summed up by Fredric Dannen, author of Hit Men, the definitive book about the often murky business of rock'n'roll. 'He could order a bottle of wine from a head waiter in perfect French, then turn to his jazzman dinner guest and slip into black jive. Ahmet Ertegun was one of the original characters in the record business and the one with most class.'